DNA and the Criminal Justice System: The Technology of Justice Book

About the Author: Dorothy Rabinowitz is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

Overview: The fear of being labelled soft on punishing the sexual abuse of children has caused many individuals in the criminal justice system to remain silent when false accusations have been made. To exonerate one accused child molester would, they fear, lead to undermining the crusade against child abuse.

An Epidemic of Prosecutorial Misconduct: During the 1980s and 1990s in the United States, many innocent people were convicted of molesting children in non-family settings, such as school and child care. The author describes several causes of these injustices:
• repeated interrogations of children until the children's integrity broke down and they said what their interrogators wanted them to say
• phony experts in child abuse who made careers out of promoting child abuse hysteria
• the qualifications of so-called expert witnesses are not carefully examined
• the same expert witnesses keep being used again and again at different trials
• over zealous district attorneys trying to make a name for themselves
• district attorneys and expert witnesses asking the children leading questions and coaching them what to say on the witness stand
• biased judges, who allowed improper testimony from the prosecution side, but who were overly restrictive in what expert testimony from the defendants' side they would allow

Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (1974): CAPTA is also called the "Mondale Act", after its prime sponsor, Senator Walter Mondale. It greatly increased federal funding for child protective services, which sometimes lead to overzealous behavior on the part of government officials trying to ferret out instances of child abuse.

Signs of Fabrication: The author points out that the cases involving wrongful prosecution differed from those where a crime actually occurred, in that when the crime actually occurred, the children talk only about the sexual violence itself, and there was no embellishment fantasy involving clowns, robots, hot-air balloons, and eating frogs. In the imaginary cases of abuse, there was usually a lack of physical evidence tying the accused to the crime, or even showing that a crime had been committed.

Never Change Wet Underwear Without a Witness: At the Fells Acres Day School in Malden, Massachusetts, a member of the Amirault family changed the underpants of a boy who had wet his pants, and was later charged with sexually molesting the boy.

Always Have a Nurse Present: Internist Patrick Griffin of New York City did not have a nurse present during a colonoscopy, and was later charged with sexually molesting his patient.

Protect Your Ass with a Paper Trail: Police officer Grant Snowden and his wife Janice were babysitters in Florida. They noticed welts on the face of a boy they babysat. Office Grant Snowden confronted the boys parents with this information. The parents responded by accusing Grant Snowden of sexually abusing their son. Since Officer Grant Snowden had not filed a police report regarding the boy's welts before confronting the parents, he was not in a position to accuse the parents of being motivated by a desire to deflect attention away from themselves.

Other Victims of False Accusations
• Kelly Michaels of the Wee Care Day Nursery of Maplewood, New Jersey
• Numerous families in Wenatchee, Washington